Red Sam
by mercurybard
Summary: SupernaturalConstantine crossover. Sam, Dean, and Jo go to LA to consult with an exorcist and find themselves caught up in a battle that transcends heaven, earth, and hell.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: _Supernatural_ and _Constantine_ belong to their respective owners. I wrote this purely for pleasure and make no profit by it. Some of the dialogue is lifted directly from the movie. The title and lyrics come from the Flyleaf song "Red Sam".

Timeline: _Supernatural _AU after "Everybody Loves a Clown". Begins at the beginning for _Constantine_. Also, includes a character found only in the deleted scenes of _Constantine_ (didn't want anyone to get all huffy about there being an apparent OFC.)

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Sam was having another nightmare. It was the whimpering that woke Dean up, but as he rolled over to look at his brother, Sam's mad thrashing managed to tip the cot. That woke Vision Boy as his ass got dumped on the hard wood floor of Ellen's back room (which was more of a lean-to than an actual _room_, Dean had decided about five seconds after the woman showed them where they'd be staying).

The floorboards groaned in protest. "Jesus, Sam, are you ok?" Dean leaned over the edge of his own cot (careful not to overbalance and tip it).

"Ow!" Sam sat up, shoving the cot off of him and rubbing ruefully at his forehead. "Was that an earthquake?"

"No—that'd just be you falling out of bed. So, what was the dream about?"

Sam pinched the bridge of his nose like he did whenever he had a headache or was trying to think too hard. "I'm not sure. There was a woman, standing on top of a building. There's a cityscape below her. I…" His head shot up, worry in his eyes. "Dean, I think she's going to jump."

"Jump? Yeah, because that sounds supernatural." Dean rolled over on to his back, trying to get comfortable again on the narrow cot.

Sam huffed. "It's happened before—my visions showing us what looks like a suicide when really it was murder."

He was right—there'd been that kid, Max, in Michigan, the one like Sam, only able to move stuff with his mind. The kid had killed his father in what looked like a suicide and his uncle in an apparent accident before turning the gun on himself. Big, ugly mess and Sam still related to the kid too much. "Ok…did you see someone coming to push this woman?"

His brother had gotten the Army surplus cot righted and was now back on it, carefully positioned in the middle so as not to tip it again. More nose pinching. "No…she's alone on the roof, but there's something driving her, Dean, and it's not the desire to end her life. It's more like she's afraid of what could happen if she lived."

"Dude, still not seeing the difference here. Why don't you go back to sleep, and we'll deal with it in the morning."

"If my dream was right, we might not have until morning," he muttered, but he rolled over, turning his back to Dean. After only a handful of minutes, his breathing had fallen back into the deep regularity of real sleep. Only then did Dean let himself close his eyes as well.


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning, the Winchester brothers emerged from Ellen's back room to find that it was almost noon. Ellen's daughter, Jo, was busy wiping down the bar with a rag as they wandered into the saloon's main room. Sunlight filtered in through the window behind her, picking out the golden highlights in her blond-brown hair. "'Bout damn time you two lazy bums got up."

Dean just sort of grunted and headed for the bathroom.

Sam, though, settled on a barstool near where she was working and gave her a weak smile. "I had a rough night."

Jo arched one dark eyebrow. "You only had two beers."

"Not booze—bad dreams."

"Hunting will do that to you. Once, when I was like ten, my mom took me out to help her track down two Nahuales."

"Two what?"

"Mexican shapeshifters from Aztec days. Anyway, when we finally found them, they'd torn a woman apart and sacrificed her to Tezcatlipoca. Nasty, nasty stuff. I had nightmares for months afterward." She took another swipe at the bar with the Clorox-scented rag and then stopped, leaning her elbows so she could look across the counter at him.

Sam rubbed at his eyes. His head was still pounding, even after another seven hours of sleep. With every vision came some pain, and it seemed to be staying with him longer and longer each time. It didn't help that every time he closed his eyes, he saw that poor woman's face looking back at him.

Jo reached across the bar and squeezed his hand. "Do you want to talk about it?"

He looked up and into her warm brown eyes. Here was another kid who'd grown up a hunter brat—her dad had chased the things that went bump in the night just like his had. And just like John Winchester, her father had been killed by one of those things. Luckily, Jo still had Ellen, who had the saloon. It kept them both grounded in the regular world, even though it served as a way station for hunter-types. Like Ash, the genius with a mullet, who was currently fast asleep atop a pool table in the corner.

Maybe it would be okay to tell Jo about the visions. Maybe she could understand, even if it was just understanding like Dean understood them—not at all, really, but at least his brother didn't look at him like he was out of his goddamn mind. "It wasn't just a nightmare—it was a premonition. I get them sometimes."

Jo's eyebrow went up again. "Seriously?"

"Seriously. I started having them a couple weeks before Jess—before my girlfriend was killed." He looked down at their hands, on the bar, hers still resting over both of his. Her fingernails were cut short and had been painted with clear nail polish at one point, but it was starting to chip. "At first, all the dreams were about Jess dying, but then, after she died, they started to be about other stuff. Demon-related stuff. The one I had last night…there was a woman on a roof, the city down below her. She turned back towards me, and I could see she was terrified—like something was chasing her." Sam closed his eyes, his brow furrowing as he tried to conjure up every detail of the prophetic dream. "Then, she reached down and ripped a bracelet—one of those medical wristbands you get in the hospital—and let the wind take it…" He trailed off.

"And?" Jo asked, leaning in closer.

"And then I woke up," he finished. "But I got the impression that she was going to jump. Or, maybe, she already has."

"You said there was a city—what city?"

She seemed curious, and she certainly wasn't looking at him like he was a freak. Relief flooded through Sam as he wracked his brain, trying to recall the details of the skyline. If only there was a building he recognized or maybe a landmark. His father had dragged him and Dean to most of the major cities in the continental U.S. during their childhood. "Los Angeles," he said after a moment, remembering the City of Angels from the six months they'd lived there back when he was in high school. "I'm pretty sure it's Los Angeles."

"So, when do you leave?"

That caught him by surprise. "What?"

"When do you leave for Los Angeles? I mean, come on, you have to be having these dreams for a reason, right? And if they are tied in with the demon that killed your dad, then it's the closest thing you and your brother have to a lead right now."

She was right, of course. He and Dean had been stalling, stuck here at Ellen's doing the odd hunting job while waiting for the demon that had killed their parents and Jess to resurface. Ash had developed a data-processing program that tracked known fluctuations in weather patterns and crime rates that Sam's dad had identified as being symptomatic of the demon's presence. So far, though, no hits. Who knew how long they were going to have to wait? "Dean's reluctant to go. He's still not done working on the car, and he doesn't want to leave in case Ash's computer work comes through."

"We can take my truck," Jo volunteered, "And we all have cell phones—if the demon resurfaces, then Ash can call us, and we'll just go from there."

"Wait—you're going with us?"


	3. Chapter 3

Note: I started writing this right after "Everybody Loves a Clown" aired, when we knew very little about Jo and Ellen besides their names. So, the two of them, as portrayed here, does vary from what we saw in later episodes like "No Exit". Sorry if that bothers people, but I wasn't going to go back and change stuff when I was so far into the story already.

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"I knew this day was coming," Jo's mother grumbled as she settled herself on the bed to watch Jo toss clothes into a duffel bag. "I just didn't expect it to be so soon."

Where'd she put her blessed crucifix? Jo yanked open a drawer in her desk and started riffling through it. A small vial of holy water joined the growing pile next to Ellen. "I'm a hunter, Mom. Same as you and Daddy."

For some reason, that made her mother laugh—a bitter laugh laced with irony and almost devoid of mirth. "If only you knew how true that was." She held the duffel open for Jo to stuff a pair of jeans and a wad of underwear in. "Take your Bowie knife—you'll need it."

Jo shook her head as she turned back to the desk, still looking for the crucifix. Most mothers would be rattling off all the reasons why going with the Winchesters to Los Angeles was a royally Bad Idea, but not her mother. Nope, Mom was telling her to make sure she packed enough weapons. There'd been points in time—especially after her daddy had been killed—that Jo wished for a normal family, but right now, she wouldn't give up the hunting life for all the normalcy in the world. After all, how often did twenty-one-year-olds get to go on a road trip with two _very_ hot brothers and have their mothers not only approve, but tell them to be sure to pack a really big knife?

"There're some things I've been meaning to tell you for a while now. When I called John Winchester four months back, I seriously thought he'd take me up on the offer to help him hunt this demon and then it would've been a good time to tell you, but the damn fool wouldn't take my help and now he's dead…" Ellen trailed off, her eyes wandering to the window. There was nothing outside but the dusty parking lot of the roadhouse, but she wasn't looking at the scenery, not really. Jo watched her mother's throat work as the woman swallowed. "Listen—there's a man in L.A. by the name of John Constantine. When it comes to hunting demons, he's the best there is. They say he's been to Hell and come back. You and the boys, you be sure to track him down. Maybe he knows more about the demon John was chasing." Her eyes drifted back to her, and Jo felt her chest tighten as her mother looked at her. "And, Jo, don't get involved with either of the Winchester brothers—I don't care how pretty they are. That family'll bring you nothing but heartache."


	4. Chapter 4

_Los Angeles, four days later…_

Angela Dodson kept her eyes on the ground as she crossed through the main room of the physical therapy center at Our Lady of Mercy Memorial Hospital, only looking up to give her fellow law enforcement officials a quiet "good morning" as she passed.

"Detective." None of them would meet her eyes. All the more reason to keep her gaze on her shoes.

"No…no…" she whispered to herself. If she said it enough times, maybe it would become not-true. Maybe God would take pity on her and undo what had been done.

Jose Weiss, her partner, the closest thing she had to a friend these days or so it seemed, tried to step in front of her, tried to block her view. His arm was in a sling today, the white strap holding it across his chest looking tacky against his plaid blazer. A bullet had passed through the meaty part of his upper arm last night during the shoot-out. His gun hadn't even been drawn, but she'd already pulled hers and shot one of the thugs who had ambushed them in the alley they'd run down in pursuit of a kid who'd tried to knock over a convenience store. She'd taken down the one who shot Weiss too, but it was the first of her bullets that'd proven lethal. A night of turning the scenario over and over in her head, and Angie still couldn't figure out how she'd known the men were there, in the alley. She and Weiss hadn't even been on the clock—just stopped off at the corner store to get some coffee before heading into work.

Most cops went twenty years without pulling their piece. Not her. She was always in the wrong place at the wrong time. She always knew where they were.

Weiss should've been at home, resting. His brown skin had a grayish tinge to it, and she knew he'd skipped a dose of painkiller so he could be lucid enough to drive. So he could be here for her. Her only friend.

"You don't need to see this, okay?" he said, trying to herd her back the way she'd come.

Angela's eyes were focused beyond him as she shouldered past. "No…" she repeated again.

She heard him ask for everyone to clear the room as she walked forward. Weiss sounded so far away, like he was murmuring at the far end of a tunnel. It was hard to hear him over the pounding of her own pulse in her ears.

They kept the PT room so cold, and yet her palms were sweating. She wiped them on her trousers as she knelt down beside the body that lay on the gleaming tile beside the shallow, cross-shaped hydrotherapy pool. Her eyes looked out across the pale blue water and then up to the skylights, the one directly over the water smashed in, only a few shards of glass clinging to the frame.

Angela pulled back the sheet and looked down into her own face.

Not her own face, though it might as well have been given how much it looked like her. Not her. Isabel. Her twin sister; her other half. The light to her dark; the insane to her sanity.

Isabel was dead.

It felt like she should be hurting more, right now. Her sister was dead, but there was nothing but a big gaping hole inside of Angie. Gently, she picked a sliver of glass from her sister's forehead. "Isabel…she fell from the roof…"

"She jumped," Weiss corrected softly. She'd almost forgotten he was in the room with them, her and Isabel.

"No," she said firmly as her fingers moved, seeking all the little pieces of glass that had imbedded themselves in Isabel's face. This wasn't right; this wasn't procedure. It was her job as a detective to preserve the integrity of the crime scene, but she couldn't stop herself. The fact that she had been the last one called—after everything was photographed and bagged and now all that was left was to take her sister down to the morgue—was cold comfort.

Weiss stayed away, by the door. Smart man—she couldn't have born being touched right then. "I know it's hard to accept. She was sick…"

Anger flared up inside Angela, momentarily filling the hole. Her only friend. Didn't he know her—know her family—well enough by now to understand just how crazy he sounded? "Isabel wouldn't kill herself," she said as she lowered the white plastic sheet back over her twin's head.

"Angie…"

"She wouldn't kill herself."

"Detective…"

"Period."

"Detective…"

"Period!" It was so much easier to be angry at Jose than at Isabel. She couldn't be angry at Isabel. Not now.

"Angie," Weiss said, one more time, "There were security cameras."

And she felt a tear run down her nose.


	5. Chapter 5

"So how're we supposed to find this Constantine your mom mentioned?" Dean asked. They'd found a small motel in a less-than affluent part of town and gotten a double. The older of the Winchester boys was pacing back and forth, making a circuit from the door to the armchair in the corner to the bathroom and back again. If he didn't stop soon, Jo was going to be dizzy.

"She didn't say," she muttered as she craned her neck to see what Sam was doing. He'd set up his laptop on the bed closest to the door, and now his long fingers were flying over the keys. "L.A.P.D. Datalink—how in the hell did you hack into that?"

"Dad managed to get a hold of a password when he stole some cop's badge," Sam answered absently. He typed 'John Constantine' into the database search and hit the enter key. A record popped up, complete with mug shots showing a lean-faced man in his thirties with dark hair that stuck up in such a way that suggested 'bad case of bed-head' or someone who didn't own a comb. Jo studied the picture for a second and decided that Constantine looked like the type to have a smart mouth. Working in the bar since she was old enough to see over the counter, she'd gotten pretty good a judging what kind of person someone was just by looking at them.

Someone had scanned newspaper clippings with headlines like 'Occult Activity on the Rise' and attached them to Constantine's file. Crime scene photos of everything from blood-splattered walls to dead chickens had been included as well. "It says here that there's never been enough evidence to prosecute him," Sam said, pointing to a highlighted line on one of the arrest records he was scrolling through.

"Makes sense if he's dealing only with supernatural monsters," Jo murmured. "Especially the more insubstantial ones like ghosts and demons. From what Mom told me, I got the impression that he specializes in possessions."

"Yeah," Dean said from the point in his pacing nearest the sink, "The only reason I'm wanted by the cops is because of that fucking shapeshifter stealing my identity."

Sam made a clicking noise with his tongue as he opened some more photo files. "Cops think you're dead, Dean."

"You forgetting Officer Kathleen in Alabama?"

"Somehow, I doubt she's going to rat you out—even if she did handcuff you to her car."

Jo raised an eyebrow. There was a story she was going to have to hear some time. Sam had stopped on two pictures that looked like they'd been taken from the same crime scene. On the left, John Constantine was being led out of a building in handcuffs. On the right, a woman holding a small girl stood in the same doorway, a priest beside her.

"That's who we need," Sam said, tapping a finger against the liquid crystal screen, making it ripple over the priest's face. "He'll know how to find who we're looking for."

Jo leaned even closer, her hair brushing against the side of Sam's face. "Does it give a name?"

He turned and looked at her, their faces so close together that she could smell the oregano from the pasta he'd had for lunch. For a moment, they simply stared at one another, too close to really focus on the other's face, just listening to the other breathe. Besides the oregano, he smelled like Ax deodorant and car exhaust. It wasn't a bad combination—very normal, she decided.

Dean cleared his throat noisily, and they both jerked away.

"Father Hennessy," Sam said quickly, brushing some of his hair away from his eyes. "It says his name is Father Hennessy from St. Mark's."


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: Happy New Years, everybody!

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"So the priest with tin foil over his windows sends us to the bowling alley where a scrawny dude with dorky glasses tells us we've just missed our guy and sends us here. I'm thinkin' a fat female librarian's going to tell us Constantine's gone grocery shopping in China Town next," Dean said as he looked out the window at the ornately decorated building across the street.

Sam watched Jo slapped his brother on the arm. "It's a church-run theological institute. If there's a fat librarian in there, it's going to be a 'he'." She looked past Dean to Sam, who was crammed on the end of the truck's bench seat, the door handle digging into his ribs. The drive to L.A. hadn't been a particularly pleasant one, crammed in like this. Too many hours of Dean and Jo bickering about the radio. Too many hours of his legs being smashed under the dash. The smile Jo flashed him right then made him feel a little less cranky though. A little. "Do we have to take him inside?" she asked, batting her eyelashes playfully.

Sam chuckled. "Unfortunately, I think the law requires us to crack a window if we leave him out here, and it's raining. Wouldn't want to get your truck wet."

"Sam, I've had this truck since I was sixteen. A little rainwater can only improve the state of the upholstery."

"Hello! Right here!" Dean squawked. "The least you can do, since I did ride bitch all the way down here, is acknowledge my presence."

Jo rolled her eyes and then hopped out. Sam did likewise, trying not to flinch as the cold raindrops splattered across his bare lower arms.

"Sam's got longer legs than you," she was reminding Dean as he came around the front of the truck.

"I could have driven," his brother whined.

"Not a chance in Hell of that—nobody drives my baby but me."

Sam tried to hide his laughter behind his arm and failed miserably. It amused him how alike those two were. The old Ford pickup wasn't even close to being in the Impala's league, but Jo doted on her vehicle all the same. He wondered, idly, if it had been the inspiration behind some of the modifications his father had made to his own truck. The weapons locker in the back was identical. Sam was quickly discovering just how much of the hunting life Dad had hidden from them—the connections, the people. Growing up, he'd thought their family was one of the very few out there doing this. Now, there were people like Ellen, Jo, and Ash who not only knew about the monsters in the closet but also knew whether a .38 or a .45 would be the most effective at taking them out. People who carried salt in their glove boxes and found ingenious ways to hide a small arsenal in a four-door. Maybe, if he'd known about this kind of hunter community, he thought as he hurried through the rain after the other two, he might not have been in such a hurry to run off to Stanford. It had been the loneliness of the road that had always bothered him—the never having the chance to fit in.

_No_, he told himself as he reached the top step and paused to shake the rain from his hair, _you wanted normal, and that's what college gave you for four years. Unfortunately, dumbass, you don't know how to be normal._

Dean was looking back out at the street, a frown narrowing his eyes.

Sam turned to look too but didn't see anything other than the odd car rushing by and a yellow cab sitting at the curb, blocking a fire hydrant. "What?"

"That Angel City cab's got books on Satanism and witchcraft sitting on the dash," his brother said.

"So we're in the right place," Jo muttered, "One way or another."


	7. Chapter 7

Jo paused in the foyer of the Theological Society to look up at a painting of the Crucifixion that hung over her head. Christ, on the cross, his head bowed in suffering but not defeat as a Roman soldier—Longius, her brain supplied—stabbed his side with a spear. She was familiar with the Bible, not as a matter of faith but as another reference book on the supernatural. Her dad, she remembered, used to take her to Mass when she was very little, her mother staying at home to catch a few hours' more shut-eye on her only day to sleep in. The church-going had stopped once her dad had started hunting in earnest. There just wasn't time for it after that.

"No…thanks." The words echoed through the cold, high-ceilinged room. Jo turned and found the speaker standing in the middle of the aisle between the rows and rows of bookcases, about halfway between the door and the fireplace at the far end of the room. His back was to her, giving her only a look at a black coat, dark hair, and a flash of pale skin as he continued talking to the young priest in front of him. Constantine, maybe? He certainly had that pastiness hardcore hunters developed if they'd been on the job too long. Most of the beasties were nocturnal, and eventually the hunters became that way too. Jo, personally, had long given up having that healthy-looking tan she saw in magazines. When you worked in a roadhouse, your hours were almost as bad as if you were out on the hunt. It'd been easier to keep a normal schedule when she was still in school. Classes from seven to two, nap until eight o'clock, then work until closing time before doing homework and going back to bed. A lonely way to live that hadn't left much time for regular friends, but Mom had needed her.

"How about you, ma'am?" the priest asked the woman standing behind the dark man. Again, dark clothes, dark hair, pale skin. There was something about the way the woman held herself that suggested acute exhaustion, though it would kill her to admit she was even a little tired.

Jo moved closer, trying to move as quietly as possible over the hardwood floor. Her wet boots squelched on the floor, and she winced.

"Oh, no—I'm not staying long either," the woman said, her voice low and husky. "I really need to speak with him. It's very important."

"First come, first serve," the man said, a little too loudly for the academic, almost cathedral hush of the place. _Ass_, Jo thought, and she could tell the woman was thinking it too.

Sam and Dean had disappeared, she realized as she stopped a respectful distance back from the little knot of people. Trying to eavesdrop while making it look like she wasn't. The acoustics of the room made her job alternately easier and harder, depending on who was speaking.

There were two people talking in front of the fire. One was another priest, older, who greeted the woman warmly before drawing her off between the stacks to talk, effectively muffling their conversation. As for the other…well, Jo couldn't make up her mind if it was a he or a she, but whatever the case, as soon as the priest moved away, the man-who-might-be-Constantine stepped up to speak with it. "Still keeping your All Seeing Eye on me?" the man said. He didn't move like a man approaching a friend, but rather like an animal slowly circling another predator. A subtle dance of power that cast the androgynous figure in the business suit as first a peer, then potential prey.

"Well, I could offer something about how the shepherd leads even the most wayward of his flock, but it might sound disingenuous," the suit said in a melodious voice. Jo edged closer, catching a glimpse of Sam between the shelves, moving down a side aisle toward the woman and the priest, an intent and slightly disturbing look on his face. Heaven only knew where Dean had gone.


	8. Chapter 8

_That was the woman!_ Sam ducked around the end of a bookcase after stealing another glimpse at the brunette speaking with the father. The large brown eyes, the slightly hooked nose that gave the face character without subtracting from its overall beauty…this was the same woman who'd jumped off the building in his dream.

Or not.

"She has to have a Catholic funeral, father. She has to," the woman said. Sam slid aside a couple of books, making a peephole through which he could watch them talk.

"Angela, it's still considered a mortal sin," the priest said.

"She didn't commit suicide." It sounded like a mantra, something that'd been repeated over and over again until the words almost lost all meaning to the one saying them. _But they're true_, something in Sam's mind whispered. It was the little instinctual voice talking—the one that sometimes provided snide commentary for his visions. It was almost giggling now, as if the truth about the death the pair was discussing was just too funny. Sam hated that voice. _The devil on my shoulder_.

"The bishop believes otherwise. You know the rules, Angela."

"Oh, rules! Father…David. This is Isabel. God was the only one she ever believed loved her. Please." Her voice had grown even huskier, and Sam didn't need to see her face to know she was fighting back tears.

Suicide, in Catholic doctrine, was a mortal sin as the father had pointed out. The church wouldn't allow this Isabel to be buried on holy ground so long as her death was considered a suicide. In Sam's experience, a body improperly buried—at least in the spirit's mind—tended to lead to bad things. Like poltergeists or zombies. Just one more reason why he and Dean had cremated their father after the demon killed him. John Winchester had died with a lot of unfinished business weighing down his soul. It would be the worst sort of joke if he'd come back as one of the things he'd spent twenty years of his life hunting. So, Sam and Dean had done their duty as sons and burned his body in a field, just to be sure it was done right. No chance there'd be a mix-up at the morgue. Nothing but Dad and a pyre.

Sam had tried to convince himself later that it was the sort of funeral they used to give heroes, but that'd sounded hollow, even to his ears.

"I'm sorry," the priest whispered and kissed Angela gently on the cheek before walking away.

It was now or never, he stepped around the end of the shelves as the woman stood there, trying to compose herself. "I couldn't help but overhear," he said quietly as he stopped a few feet from her. Close enough to be heard without trouble but far enough away that he wasn't invading her personal space. "Isabel…she died falling off a building, didn't she? A building with a large cross on the front?"

Her dark eyes clouded over instantly with suspicion. "What do you know about that?"

"I know that she was terrified of something," Sam said, weighing his words carefully. "So scared of whatever it was that she jumped rather than face it."

"How… How do you know?"

Moment of truth: make up some half-assed lie or simply tell her the truth. Looking into her eyes like this, he had a feeling the old gas leak / Federal Bikini Inspector badge routine wasn't going to work on her. Which left either the truth or standing here in awkward silence.

"Well?" she demanded impatiently, hitching her purse farther up on her shoulder.

Right. Out of options. Sam ran a hand back through his hair. "This is going to sound crazy, but, you see, I have these visions sometimes, and the last one was of a woman who looks just like you going off the roof of a building decorated with a giant cross."

The suspicion hardened into anger, and Angela made a noise that was part bitter laugh, part snort of disbelief. "What do you take me for? Wait—don't answer that. Just stay away from me, and stay out of my sister's business." She brushed past him, slamming her shoulder into his.

Sam watched as she disappeared around the corner of the stacks. Oh, yes, that had gone wonderfully.


	9. Chapter 9

The man Jo was beginning to suspect more and more was John Constantine was not having a good day. Considering he'd just heaved a massive antique Bible at the androgynous figure in the business suit, her suspicions were probably correct. Someone listening to a transcription of their conversation would probably think the two by the fireplace were having some deep, theological discussion, but the tones of their voices were far from academic. He was taking God's supposed policy on belief much too personally.

The man got right up in the other person's face and then fell away, collapsing into a chair as if all the anger had gone out of him. Whatever words the other spoke to him then, couldn't be words of comfort. If anything, they seemed to crush him more.

He got up, coughing, and left, but Jo stayed where she was, half-hidden in the corner by a globe of the world that'd been manufactured when the U.S.S.R. was still a global superpower. If that had been Constantine, then the odds of Sam and Dean getting what they needed from him were slim. He didn't look like he was capable of helping himself, much less the two Winchester boys on the trail of a _very_ dangerous demon who'd succeeded in killing their father, one of the best hunters in the country.

Jo still remembered the first time John Winchester had come into the roadhouse. She'd been four—a chubby, sunny four—perched on top of the bar with her crayons and My Little Pony coloring book, scribbling away as her mother handled the light dinner crowd. He sat down on a barstool next to her, praising her coloring skills and sharing his fries with her. Sam must have been five and a half at the time. Maybe John had been missing his boys that night or maybe he was just using her as an excuse to not speak with her mother. Mom had been acting weird that night—weird enough for even a four-year-old to pick up on. Had the strange behavior started before John Winchester walked through the door or had he been the cause of it?

"One of those little mysteries that will probably never be solved," a voice said.

Jo's head shot up, and she found herself looking into the eyes of the person who'd quarreled with Constantine. "What did you say?"

The person smiled. "Nothing of importance, Joanna."

The sound of her first name made her take a step back into the globe. It rattled on its stand. "How did you know my name?"

"There is much I know about you, Joanna Beth Harvelle, but there's no reason for you to fear me. My name is Gabriel."

"Like the angel?"

"Precisely."

Jo swallowed. Of all she'd read and encountered in the twenty-one years she'd been alive, not one thing had ever suggested there were angels out there. Demons, sure. The Winchester family wasn't the only one to go toe-to-toe with a demon (and come out on the losing end, sadly enough), but angels? Never a peep.

She knew because she's asked her daddy once, when she was about eight. Eight was the year when she realized that when he went out on a hunt, he might not come back, no matter how brave or how careful or how skilled he was. Jo had asked him if he had a guardian angel to watch over him, and he'd sat her down on a barstool in the saloon and told her sadly that such things didn't exist. There was man and there were monsters and maybe there was a God, but he couldn't be bothered when the monsters were pulling babies from their beds, now could he?

But now, looking at Gabriel, who knew her name without being told and who looked as serene as a medieval Virgin, Jo wondered if maybe her dad had been wrong. "What are you doing here? In L.A.?" Of all the places to find an angel…but where better than one of the nastiest cesspools of humanity?

"I came to speak with John Constantine," Gabriel replied quietly, putting a hand on Jo's shoulder and gently steering her back to an armchair by the fire.

Jo sank into the overstuffed wing-back and looked up at the angel towering over her. Everything Gabriel said—it was all clicking in Jo's head, like she'd been looking at the pieces of a puzzle for the majority of her life and never been able to make out the picture. Now, the image had been revealed to her completely, and it was simply a matter of snapping the pieces into place. "You're friends?"

Gabriel smiled, and the expression was a sonnet of mellowed sadness. Jo had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from sniffling at the sight of it. "John, I'm afraid, came here to try and bargain with God. He's dying, you see—lung cancer—and he wants an extension. He made some very poor excuse about unusual demonic activity." The angel sighed. "God has a plan for everyone. Sometimes, people can learn to accept that, but John seems to be well behind the learning curve."

Poor idiot—of course you couldn't try and change God's mind. He was God after all! "Can you help him?"

"Not if he doesn't want to be helped…but that is where I need your help."


	10. Chapter 10

"Batshit crazy L.A. drivers," Dean muttered under his breath as he jammed his hands into the pockets of the denim jacket he'd picked up in Wisconsin. His old one—the one he'd had since before Sam had taken off for Stanford what? Five years ago?—yeah, that'd been shredded in the demon-caused wreck that had trashed his baby. Thinking about his poor Chevy, sitting back at Bobby's lot, still in pieces, did nothing to help his temper.

Didn't help that it was _pouring_, and he was once again chasing after this Constantine guy. The man didn't even seem to know he was being tailed, but he still managed to stay one step ahead. Dean had been waiting around in the entryway for Sam to finish accosting the cute brunette. Not that he would end up with her phone number or anything—with Sam, getting lucky meant she didn't run away screaming. Anyway, he'd been standing here when Constantine hurried out of the building and out into the rain. A kid had gotten out of the cab and shouted for him, but the man had kept right on walking, traffic coming between him and Dean when Dean had tried to follow.

He sighed and forced himself to admit he'd lost him. At some point, while Dean was busy dodging cars driven by maniac assholes, Constantine had left the street. Oh, well, it'd been a long shot anyway. There was no way of knowing if this guy actually knew anything remotely useful about the demon they were looking for.

Or another way to kill it.

The demon had the Colt, the Civil War-era gun that could kill _anything_. If the Winchesters had played their hand right, they could have killed the demon that'd murdered Mom and Sam's girlfriend, Jess. But they'd screwed up and turned their full house into…crap because they were all so fucking eager to sacrifice themselves for one another. They'd missed their opportunity, and the demon had walked off with both the Colt and Dad's life.

All because Dad wouldn't just let Dean die. Maybe he wasn't the genius in the family, but he wasn't an idiot. No way had the demon just gotten the drop on Dad in the hospital. No way in hell.

Dean didn't remember throwing the punch, but when he pulled his fist back from the brick wall of the florist's, his knuckles were split open and blood was already gushing out.

He took an oil rag he had stuffed into his jacket pocket out. Wrapped it around his fist, pulling the knot tight with his teeth. Stupid…fucking stupid sonofabitch to hit a wall. Didn't hurt anyone but himself, and Dean was tired of hurting. Time for someone else to feel the pain for once.

He turned around and started to retrace his steps back to the Theological Society. From there, maybe Sammy and Jo could be talked into going out to a bar…or at least letting Dean go. He needed a beer or four. It wouldn't do much more than temporarily dull the ache that had been hollowing him out from the inside ever since they'd found Dad dead on the hospital floor. Maybe let him forget the truth for a few minutes—the nasty, god-awful truth that his dad had made a deal with a demon, swapping his life for Dean's in a trade that wasn't fair. Not at all.


	11. Chapter 11

"Hey, Ellen, it's Sam," the younger Winchester brother said as soon as the woman picked up.

"Hey, sweetie. How was your trip?"

"Except for getting lost in Colorado, fine." Construction had led to detours leading to badly labeled backstreets plus torrential downpours for most of the afternoon—not a fun day. "I think the next time we bring Jo with us, we're taking something with more than one seat."

"Truck too crowded?"

"That's the understatement of the century." He leaned back further into the curve of the archway surrounding the front door of the Theological Society and was rewarded with a trickle of frigid ice water running down the back of his shirt. Biting back a curse, he shifted a little to avoid the rivulet running through the intricate Gothic carving.

"Any luck finding Constantine?" Ellen asked, her tone suddenly all-business.

"We've chased him across the damn city, but, no haven't gotten the chance to talk." He raked a hand through his wet hair in frustration. "But I did talk with his driver, Chas." That had been the cabbie with suck esoteric reading materials on the dash—a young man barely out of high school who called himself Constantine's 'apprentice', though it seemed like he didn't do anything except drive the cab. Very eager to look tough and smart and generally badass. Sam had resolved five seconds after meeting Chas not to leave him alone with Dean—his brother would just be too tempted to mock the kid mercilessly. "The kid says there's been all sorts of strange demonic activity here in Los Angeles these past couple of weeks. It started…" He paused, forcing down the lump in his throat. "It started around the time Dad died. That's too big a coincidence, Ellen."

It was quiet on the other end of the connection—nothing but the hum of people talking in the background as glasses clinked and the jukebox played some country tune—the kind that always made Sam want to grind his teeth. Then, she sighed. "So what're you boys going to do about it?"

"Find out more, then go from there. Is there anyone else in town who might know something?"

"There's a place," Ellen said slowly, reluctantly, "A bar, called Papa Midnite's. Normally, I wouldn't send hunters in there unless they were…men like your father. Hell, I didn't want him going in, except wild horses weren't going to keep him out. But, Sam, I have to warn you—Papa Midnite's is neutral territory, which means you might find yourself sitting next to the demon at the bar, and there ain't nothing you can do except act civil. At least, until you get outside. Midnite was once a warrior for the light—he sacrificed a lot to make his place the supernatural equivalent of Switzerland. He will not take kindly to some young buck hunters violating his neutrality."

Note to self: leave Dean outside. His brother had been on the edge of snapping—not that he'd ever admit it—since Dad's death. But he didn't want to talk about it, didn't want anything except bottle it all up inside. Dean was headed for an explosion of spectacular proportions, and there wasn't anything Sam could do but watch. And worry.

It wasn't like Sam wasn't grieving as well, but he'd lost Jess to the demon already, and that had, sickeningly enough, prepared him to lose Dad too. Whereas, after Jess's murder, he'd been a human time bomb of rage and guilt, this time he was just numb.

"Sam?" Ellen's voice yanked him back to his rainy L.A. reality. "You still with me?"

"Uh…yeah, Ellen, I'm still here."

"Listen, you take care of your brother, okay? He's not handling your daddy's death well."

"I know."

"I know you know—I just wanted to remind you. It's one of those things moms do. Usually falls under the category of 'nagging'."

Sam chuckled. "What about Jo? Aren't you going to tell me to take care of her?"

"Nah, Jo's a big girl. She can take care of herself."


	12. Chapter 12

It was torture what she was doing to herself, but Angela couldn't help but hit the 'Play' button on the video file. It was the security camera footage showing Isabelle's leap. She'd already reviewed the tape at the hospital, Weiss and the others standing as far away as that cramped room would allow. Giving her space, they would have claimed if she'd asked; when, really, they just didn't know how to handle the raw grief that was relentlessly chipping away at her façade of ice and professionalism today.

This was just another pointless death, she tried to tell herself as she watched the tape.

No, this was Isabel.

For a moment, standing in front of that merciless bank of TVs, she'd thought she'd felt her sister there behind her, Isabel's hand—so much like her own—on her shoulder. For just a split second, she'd been _so sure_ of her sister's presence…

But that was beyond stupid. Isabel was gone: her body in the morgue and her spirit—if the police and the bishop and everyone else were to be believed—in Hell.

Except she hadn't killed herself. "I'm so sorry," Angela whispered to the grainy face on her laptop's screen, then lowered her eyes as tears trickled down familiar paths on both cheeks. She didn't know where she was finding tears enough to cry after a whole day of weeping.

"_Constantine_."

The voice…barely a whisper. Isabel?

The woman on the screen turned away from the camera and took that last fatal step off the roof.

She had to be hearing things, Angela told herself—it'd been a long, horrible day, enough to make anyone hallucinate. Besides, the footage didn't have an audio component. Just video. But she rewound it anyway.

There was nothing on the tape—just a long pause as Isabel looked straight at the camera before plunging out of sight. Her mind had to playing tricks on her.

'Constantine'. She wrote the name down though. Just in case. Hadn't that awful man whom she'd met first at the hospital and then at the Theological Society been named Constantine? She'd heard the name batted around the precinct, connected to kooky crimes involving the occult. Most of the cops thought he was a killer—or worse—but so far nobody had been able to build a case against him strong enough to get the D.A. to take it to court.

Thinking of the occult reminded her of the man who'd approached her after Father David rejected her petition to give Isabel a proper burial. The young one with the dark, floppy hair who tried to take advantage of her grief by spinning some insane story about a vision of her sister. He'd been too young to be in the confidence game, but that probably only played into his success as a con man: young, attractive, with puppy dog eyes. He probably could take old ladies for every penny they had…

Her cell phone rang. "Dodson."

Nobody replied. The other end of the connection was completely silent except the low hum that let her know the phone was working. Not even creepy pervert breathing. Angela figured it was a wrong number and shut the phone.

Then the fax line went off. Then the house phone. Her cell phone again. The phone in the bedroom that shared a landline with the one at her elbow was ringing as well, but out of sync with its partner.

Angela glanced over her shoulder, fear creeping into her gut for the first time that day as a chill ran down her spine. And the phones kept ringing.


	13. Chapter 13

Note: Anyone know what's up with the site's alert system? I'm getting feedback from chapters 2 and 12 simultaneously.

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Jo wanted to keep looking for Constantine. Sam wanted to check out a place called Papa Midnite's. Since that last meshed with his plan to drown some of his woes in cheap alcohol, Dean had gone with his brother's idea and climbed in the truck.

Now, looking at the dingy stairs leading down from the street, he wondered if maybe they should have gotten a hotel room after a quick stopover at a liquor store. Dried off; warmed up. Watched Jo and his brother pretend not to make moony eyes at each other like they'd down the entire trip down here. Price of gas being through the fucking roof, they didn't have enough money for two rooms, so he couldn't even watch a porno. "You sure you got the address right?

'Cause this doesn't look like a bar—more like a service entrance."

Sam glanced back down at the address he'd scribbled on the inside of his forearm. Said Jo's mom had given it to him. The ink was already starting to smudge from the rain, and if that '7' was supposed to be a '1' and they were six blocks in the wrong direction, Dean was going to be pissed. "No, this is it."

"Maybe they're just trying to be discrete," was Jo's suggestion. She and Sam were standing about six inches too close. Either they were trying to pick each other's pockets or both too chickenshit to take the initiative and grab the other's hand.

"Jesus," he muttered as he hurried down the stairs and shouldered open the door at the bottom. Red light and some of that crap they passed off as 'rock' these days hit him as he stepped inside. More stairs—this time covered with plush red carpeting—leading down to a beefy bouncer standing guard over the proverbial velvet rope. This wasn't a bar, he realized with disgust, it was a nightclub.

"Going down, handsome?" a voice like smoke and sand said into his ear as a small, manicured hand slid down his arm.

He looked down at the woman who'd appeared seemingly out of nowhere—big, teasing doe eyes, a plunging neckline on her little black lace dress that gave him an excellent view of her cleavage, and high, high cheekbones. The smile she flashed him was one hundred percent Grade-A naughty. "Thinkin' about it," he answered, giving her a roguish smile of his own. Suddenly, the night was starting to look up.


	14. Chapter 14

Sam watched his brother descended the steps with the brunette on his arm. Never failed—Dean found a girl in just about every town they passed through. This one was a little higher class than the usual diner waitress or bargirl though. "Looks like my brother's found a friend," he said out of the corner of his mouth.

"She looks like the kind who plays with her food," Jo said, leaning against his arm to get a better look down the stairs.

Sam laughed so hard he nearly tripped down the stairs. The bouncer let Dean and the woman who'd latched on to him in without hesitation, but when Sam and Jo stepped up to the rope, he clicked it back into place and held out what looked like an unusually sized playing card. Sam raised an eyebrow.

"What's on the card?" the bouncer growled.

Sam leaned down and squinted at the back. "Uh…a bunch of red diamonds?"

"Ha-ha, very funny," the bouncer said in a voice that betrayed how really not amused he was. "The other side, wise guy."

Jo tugged on Sam's sleeve. "I think he expects one of us to be psychic."

Yeah. And Sam didn't have to look down at her to know she was fully expecting him to pull a Patricia Arquette and get them in. Too bad he'd never actually used his power intentionally. But he focused his eyes on the card and took a deep breath.

Nothing. All he was getting was the beginnings of a headache from straining too hard. Maybe…maybe that was it. Sure, his visions always came in a packaged set complete with migraine, but maybe he needed to relax. Maybe it was like those Magic Eye pictures he'd been obsessed with back in middle school. He'd always been able to see the hidden image, and Dean never could.

Taking another breath, he let his eyes slide out of focus, and there it was. He made a face as he refocused his vision. "A rat in a dress?"

The bouncer turned the card so they could that the picture was indeed of rat wearing a pointy princess hat and hoop skirt.

"Huh," Jo murmured thoughtfully as the bouncer let them by, "I was going to go with the three of clubs myself."

Sam let out a little sigh of relief. "Honestly, I've never done anything like that before. It's always just been visions, and I don't have any control over those. And, there was this one time…I had a vision of Dean dying, but I was trapped in a closet with a big wardrobe in front of the door. Somehow, I was able to move the wardrobe with my mind."

She looked impressed. "Seriously? So, if I went over to the bar over there and got a spoon, you could bend it for me?"

He shook his head. "Trust me—that's the first thing Dean tried when I told him. Whatever this is, it doesn't work on command…or it didn't until tonight." They'd reached the end of the hall leading from the entryway to the main bar, and the red lighting wasn't letting up. Add to that the fact that his blood was starting to pound in time to the beat of the music's baseline, and Sam knew he was heading towards one hell of a headache. Ellen had said this was a watering hole for those who moved in the supernatural world, but he'd thought she meant more hunters.

No, she'd meant for the actual supernatural, he realized as they edged past a group of vampires who were tormenting something—_or someone_—trapped in a big burlap bag. The head male looked up as they walked by, and his pupils flashed like shiny pennies in the red light. Sam scooted Jo around to his other side, putting her between him and the wall…just in case. Ellen had sworn up, down, and sideways that violence was off-limits here, but there was no sense in risking it. Especially since if anything happened to Jo, assurances or no, her mother would come after him and Dean like a Fury of ancient Greece. And, to be completely sincere, Ellen Harvelle scared the shit out of him. In some ways, she reminded him of Dad, but Sam knew he never would have fought with her like he had with Dad, if she had been his mom. At least, going toe-to-toe with Dad, he sometimes felt like he might come out on top. Not because he was better at hunting or running credit card scams or on any criteria that meant something in Dad's world, but because he _knew_ there were other worlds out there and that he and Dean didn't have to live this way. Not unless they chose to. With Ellen, she had a foot firmly planted in each world.

"Did you ever want to go to college?" Sam asked as he watched an androgynous figure lean over and blow across the top of six wine glasses. The liquid inside turned from clear to dark. _Water to wine_, the back of his brain supplied.

"Sure, for all of six seconds," Jo said, sliding in front of him so now she was leading them through the press of…people. "I got a scholarship to University of Nebraska thanks to some rocking scores on the SATs. Barely made it through the first semester. I was the freak with the huge knife collection who hadn't gone to prom because I was busy helping patch up my mother after she went after a werewolf with only Ash as backup."

Sam thought back to the small, pasty genius hacker they'd met at the roadhouse. "Ouch."

"He's actually tougher on the hunt than he looks, but still—she should've taken me." The lighting shifted from all angry red to all serene blue. Jo stopped at an empty table right on the line between the two and sat down on a chair on the blue side (after first checking to make sure the seat wasn't sticky). "But, no, she wouldn't let me because she wanted me to go and have a 'normal' prom with the dress and the date and everything. The dress was red, in case you were wondering, and short and came off the clearance rack at JC Penny's because I just had this feeling I was going to get mixed up in something bad that night, and I didn't want to have to worry about blood or guts getting on a dress that cost more than thirty bucks."

Sam took the chair on the red side, figuring it would be more soothing for his eyes if he looked into the blue zone. "So, if you were off doing the prom-thing, how'd you find out about your mom?"

"Ash called me. There's a standing threat that if Mom gets hurt and he doesn't tell me, then I get to cut his balls off with a butter knife and feed them to him."

He couldn't help but wince. "I take it you two have known each other a long time."

"When he got kicked out of MIT, he managed to hitchhike to Nebraska. Somewhere along the way, he got picked up by a hunter—no idea who—and learned a few things. Showed up at the roadhouse one day and just never left. I guess it's kind of like having an older brother. I always wanted one of those."

"Believe me," Sam said with another chuckle, "They're not all that great…though Dean has his moments. Out here, on a hunt, there's no one I'd rather have at my back."

But she wasn't paying attention to him anymore. Her gaze was focused off over his right shoulder, and when he turned, he saw a lean man in a black suit winding his way through the crowd. Judging by the hostile set of his shoulders, he wasn't anymore comfortable in here, surrounded by monsters, than Sam was.

Jo stood as he neared their table. "Mr. Constantine!"

The man stopped and looked her over with hard eyes. "You're human." It wasn't a question.

"Last time I checked," Jo shot back, "Look Mr. Constantine…"

"You don't belong in a place like this, kid. Get outta here—go home, get yourself a new boyfriend," the man suggested, jerking his head back towards the exit.

Sam slowly got to his feet and moved to stand behind Jo. "If you're John Constantine, then you're the man we need to talk to for some advice about a demon problem."

One dark eyebrow—sliced through with a narrow white scar—arched. "You're exorcists?" he asked, disbelief crystal clear in his voice.

"Hunters," Sam corrected, "Though I've done an exorcism or two in the past."

Constantine frowned, looking from Sam to Jo and back again. "Just who are you kids?"

Sam opened his mouth to answer, but Jo beat him to it. "I'm Jo Harvelle, and this is Sam Winchester."

Both eyebrows lifted this time. "Will and Ellen's little girl?" He looked to Sam. "And you're one of John Winchester's boys?" When Sam nodded, the other man gave a little mirthless laugh. "Talk about your ironic bullshit."

"What's so funny?" Sam asked.

"Kid, if your daddy didn't tell you, then I'm not going to ruin the surprise. How's the old son of a bitch doing these days anyway?"

"He's dead," he answered bluntly.

"It was the yellow-eyed demon he'd been tracking," Jo elaborated. "The same one that killed their mother and Sam's girlfriend."

"Been a busy little asshole, hasn't he?" Constantine muttered. "Right. When did this start?"

Sam did some fast calculations. "Three weeks ago is when Meg—she was a possessed girl—started killing Dad's friends, but the demon, according to Dad, resurfaced about a year ago."

He could see John doing some calculations of his own. "Three weeks ago…right. Come with me." Turning on a heel, he marched to the back of the club where a heavy, padded door was slowly easing open. A man taller than Sam with half his face nothing but a pucker of scars came out, pushing past them.

They followed Constantine in, Jo slipping her hand into Sam's. Inside the lighting was warm, indirect, and natural. When the vault-style door closed behind them, the music from the club was completely cut off. A black man sat at a table across the room from the door, his head down and a straw fedora hiding his face from view. Smoke from a clove cigarette curled up around the brim of the hat. A tickle of power ran down Sam's spine as he looked at the man. Constantine drew closer, and Sam saw the glint of a massive scorpion necklace hanging around the man's neck. _This must be Papa Midnite_, he thought. There was someone else—another black man, older, like the kind that decorated front porches across the South—but no one seemed to pay much attention to him. One of Midnite's cronies, probably.

"Don't get up," Constantine said to Midnite, snagging a chair from a table in the corner.

"You've been absent for quite some time," the black man said in a musical, heavily-accented voice that suggested he actually hailed from someplace in Africa. "And who are these that you bring with you?"

"One of John Winchester's sons _and_ Will Harvelle's daughter." There was something about the way Constantine stressed the 'and' that Sam didn't like. As if there was something monumentally ironic about the whole situation.

"Interesting," Midnite murmured and stubbed his cigarette out in a crystal ashtray on the table in front of him. His dark eyes narrowed as he looked Constantine over. "I see now: your health is bad...how long?"

Constantine shifted uneasily in his chair, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a red pack of cigarettes and a lighter. "Six months, maybe a year." Jo moved closer to the back of John's chair, dragging Sam with her.

"I thought I heard thunder last night. It must have been Satan's stomach growling." Midnite paused and lit another of his dark cigarettes. "You're the one soul he'd come up here himself to collect."

Constantine snapped his own lighter opened. "So I've heard."

Sam exchanged a glance with Jo. Just who was this guy? Somehow, Sam didn't think Midnite and Constantine were talking metaphorically. Sam remembered asking his dad, when he was little, if the devil was real. John Winchester's understanding of God had never been something readily comprehensible, not even to his boys. On the one hand, something lend power to water that'd been blessed, and demons certainly existed, but Dad had found it easier to believe in evil than in a God who had let his wife die, pinned to the ceiling, by a demonic hand. As for a specific devil, well, the jury had still been out on that one the last time Sam had asked.

"Well, you most certainly didn't come here for a sympathetic shoulder to cry on—not with those two in tow."

Constantine blew a stream of smoke out his nose. "A demon just attacked me, right out in the open."

Midnite blew out smoke of his own. "They don't like you, John. How many have you deported back to Hell?"

"Not some angry half-breed, Midnite—a full-fledged demon here, on our plane."

"Clearly, I do not have to remind you that is impossible…"

Constantine interrupted. "And, yesterday, I saw a soldier demon try to chew its way out through a little girl. One of the princes of Hell killed John Winchester three weeks ago—right around the time all this strange shit started up."

"Listen, John, demons stay in Hell; angels in Heaven—the great détente of the original superpowers." Sam couldn't help but make a noise of disbelief, deep in his throat.

John snorted too. "Thanks for the history lesson, Midnite. You've been a tremendous help." He pushed himself up out of the chair. "Now, I need to use the chair."

That got Midnite's attention. "John—forgetting that fact that it would almost certainly kill you—you know I am neutral, and as long as the balance is maintained, I take no sides."

Constantine looked down at his feet, scuffing one toe against the floor, and exhaled another lungful of smoke. "Before you were a…bartender, you were one witchdoctor against what? Thirty ashkar? And I'm…"

"You were Constantine," Midnite interjected. "The John Constantine. Once."

Sam closed his eyes out of embarrassment for Constantine. Bringing up that old business between him and the club's owner had sounded an awful lot like calling in an old debt, but Midnite had shot him down so easily. Not for the first time since arriving in L.A., Sam wished he knew more about this man Ellen had sent them to meet. They'd been getting hints that he was some sort of living legend all along this trail, but now, looking at him, pale and desperate, turned down by an old friend… _Would this have been Dad's future if he'd lived longer?_

John leaned forward, resting his hands on the table. "This isn't the usual game—I can feel it. Something's coming."

Midnite looked incredulous, but it was the voice from behind them going "Ooh, spooky!" that really emphasized how melodramatic Constantine's pronouncement sounded. Definitely not the voice of an old man. When had someone else had the chance to enter the room since the door had stayed closed throughout Constantine and Midnite's bickering?

Nevertheless, a man of medium height with a pinstriped suit, polka dot tie, and slicked back auburn hair stood in the corner, rolling a silver coin across the back of his knuckles.

"Balthazar," Constantine snarled.

The man with the coin smirked. "That expression alone has made my entire night." His accent was faintly British—just enough to make him sound sleazy. Sam wouldn't have trusted him even if his mere presence hadn't put Constantine's hackles up. While he still wasn't sure if John Constantine was a man who could be trusted either, there was something inside of him telling him that the exorcist's instincts were dead-on, no matter what Midnite was suggesting.

"I'll make your night," Constantine growled, closing the distance between himself and the newcomer menacingly. "I'll deport your sorry ass right where you stand…" He reached into his jacket and started to pull a small book out of an inner pocket.

So either Constantine moonlighted for the NIS or this Balthazar was a demon. Right. That would explain the slight scent of sulfur that now wafted across the room.

Midnite's fists slammed down on his table, making dishes and small votive statues jump with the clank of upset crockery and glassware. Bourbon slowly burbled out of a tipped over bottle, staining the tablecloth. "You know the rules of my house. While you are here, you will abide by them." He didn't raise his voice, but the threat carried anyway. Midnite was not a man Sam wanted to mess with anytime soon.

Reluctantly, Constantine slid the book back into his coat.

"Johnny Boy," Balthazar said softly as he moved in closer to the exorcist, "Word is you're on your way down." His eyes raked over Constantine, and the _desire_ in the look made Sam very glad he wasn't the one the demon was focused on. "Fresh meat." Balthazar kissed his fingers and bobbed his head forward, getting right in John's face, and Constantine jerked away. "Finger-licking good." Sam's gut clenched as the demon's eyes started to glow subtly red.

"We have a meeting now, John," Midnite said quietly from his seat in the corner. "Ms. Harvelle, Mr. Winchester, it was a pleasure to meet the both of you, but if you please…"

Balthazar eased past Constantine, and as soon as he passed, the exorcist began to cough. Deep, fluid-filled hacks that shook the man's wiry body until he was bent in half. The demon settled in the chair Constantine had abandoned and then turned back to the man. "What? I didn't catch that."

"Bastard!" Jo hissed at the demon and then hurried after Constantine as he pushed open the door and staggered out into the club. Sam had no choice but to follow. Somebody had turned on the strobe lights, making it so he only saw individual people in the rhythmic flashes. It took him a moment to find Jo and Constantine by the wall. The exorcist was still hunched over, coughing into his cuff as Jo hovered worriedly around him.

"That six months to a year you told Midnite about—that's how long you have to live," Sam guessed as he leaned up against the wall beside them.

If looks could kill, Sam would've been fried nine times over. Constantine gave one last moist hack and then straightened. "Lung cancer…but don't go spreading it around." There was, Sam saw in between blinks of the light, blood on the stiff white fabric of the exorcist's shirt. Maybe six months was being too optimistic.

"You going to be able to help us with the d?" Sam asked even as Jo offered, "Is there anything we can do to help?"

Constantine looked at her and snorted. "Not unless you've got a miracle cure hidden in all that pretty blond hair of yours."

Jo did not look amused. Luckily—or not—Dean chose that moment to step out of the crowd, the brunette who'd gotten him into the club still attached to his side. She peeled off of his brother and latched onto Constantine. "Lung cancer," she cooed, barely audible over the pounding of the music. "That's funny as shit, John."

"Who's the new boy toy, Ellie?" he shot back.

"This is Dean," she said, holding a hand back to snag Dean by the front of his shirt and pull him in closer.

"He's my brother," Sam added.

Constantine looked at Ellie and smirked. "That makes him a Winchester—one of _the_ Winchesters." The brunette might have flinched…it was hard to tell with the pulsing lights. The exorcist looked from one brother to the other and then to Jo. "I don't know how much your folks told you about demons, but Ellie here is what I call a half-breed—the daughter of a demon and a human." He glanced over at Sam. "A lot more of them these days." His eyes wandered around the club. "We're done here."


	15. Chapter 15

They went back to the bowling alley. John Constantine had a loft upstairs—one long, window-filled room that extended over the lanes. The plumbing was exposed; the kitchenette, an afterthought. This was a place to store plastic chairs and spare bowling shoes and stockpile extra jugs for the water cooler, not a place to live. But, apparently, this was where Constantine did whatever it was that might constitute living for him. Sam excused himself to use the bathroom as soon as they hit the second floor. Constantine headed to the fridge.

"Listen, man," Dean said to the exorcist after accepting three cold beers, "Thanks for the save back at the bar."

"What the hell are you talking about?" He opened the cabinet next to the refrigerator and took down a bottle of bourbon and a glass, then brushed by Dean and took a seat at the long wooden table that took up most of the room. Jo was at one of the windows, peering down at the street below. It had finally stopped raining.

Dean sat down across the table from John and opened a beer. "You know—with the demon girl."

One black eyebrow arched haughtily. "With Ellie?" He poured himself a finger's worth of liquor and then knocked it back. "She's harmless."

"She's a demon…"

"Half-demon," Constantine corrected.

"Ok, half-demon, but that doesn't make her any less evil!"

He slammed the glass down hard enough to make Dean's discarded bottle cap bounce. "If that's what you think, then you're just setting yourself up for a lot of pain sometime in the near future. Ellie's mostly human—one of her parents was possessed at the time of conception. In her case, her mother. From the demon inside mommy dearest, she inherited a few powers—nothing major, just some psychic dreams and preternatural sensitivities. The only reason Ellie's so heavily involved in the supernatural underworld is because that demon didn't get its ass deported until a little over five years ago—that's how I met her. She could have just as easily been raised by a couple in suburban middle America without ever knowing a thing about her screwed up parentage until her powers started manifesting. All it would take was the demon moving on shortly after the conception."

Dean just stared at him for a few minutes. "What're you trying to say?" he finally growled.

"What I'm trying to say is don't be too quick to judge Ellie—she's partially human. She's got the same choice to rise or fall." He pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. "Just like the rest of us."

A toilet flushed behind the door at the far end of the apartment, and a moment later, Sam emerged.

"Jesus, Sam, what'd you do? Fall in?" Jo teased as she peeled herself away from the window.

He'd stripped down to jeans and his t-shirt, the flannel shirt and jacket he'd had on earlier no where in sight. "Wringing my clothes out," Sam explained as he grabbed one of the beers and flopped down in the chair next to his brother.

_Some psychic he is_, Dean thought as he watched his younger brother twist the cap off and flick it at Jo. The blond girl laughed and swatted it away. _Too busy flirting to notice the bomb that just got dropped on me_. It didn't take much to figure out just what Constantine had been applying—especially with that 'middle America' crap. Add to that what Dad had told him just before they found him dead…

"Hey," Sam continued, still oblivious, "I left some stuff hanging on the edge of the tub to dry, if that's okay with you."

John made a noncommittal noise and lit up, taking a first deep drag from the cigarette.

"Oh, yeah, because that's smart," Jo muttered sarcastically as she watched him inhale. The rain had reduced her hair to wet, stringy strands that hung in clumps around her face. As they dried, a halo of golden frizz was forming around her head. "What're you? Suicidal?"

Constantine laughed and blew out a lungful of smoke. "Kid, you have no idea."

For a moment, the four of them just sat there, the hunters drinking their beer and the exorcist smoking his cigarette. A spider came crawling along the side of the table. A little yellow-brown spider with dark brown bands around its legs. It wasn't a tarantula, a black widow, or a brown recluse, which meant Dean's knowledge of arachnids was exhausted. He followed its progress across the table top, unsure of whether or not he should squash it or at least flick it away.

While he was still debating, Constantine reached over and trapped it inside his overturned glass. Then, leaning forward and tipping the lip of the glass up just a little, he blew a stream of smoke up and into the spider's little glass habitat. A few of the spider's legs twitched for a moment, and then the creature went still inside the smoke-filled glass. "Welcome to my life," John muttered. He looked up at them, arrayed in a line across the table from him. "Fuck…when'd I become a schoolteacher."

Dean stood, shoving his chair back. "Listen, buddy, if you don't want to help us, just tell us so we can get on our merry way. There's a demon out there that needs killing."

Constantine made a 'sit' gesture and stubbed out his cigarette. "You and your father—can't ever do things the easy way. Can't just deport that demon back to Hell; no, you have to try and kill him."

"He deserves it," Sam growled. Dean put a hand on his brother's shoulder—could feel how tense Sam was. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jo slip her hand into Sam's, under the table, and give it a comforting squeeze.

The exorcist ignored him. "Just how much do you kids know about demons? How much did your daddies teach you?" He glanced up at Dean, still standing over the table. "You can sit. This might take a while, depending on what you _don't_ know."

"Demons can take the shape of humans," Jo spoke up.

"Or possess people," Sam said, his voice tight, the muscles of his back even tighter. It didn't take much imagination to think that he was remembering Meg. Not the Meg he'd met on the side of the road, but the broken girl lying—dying—on the floor of Bobby's house.

Dean slumped back into his chair, letting go of Sam's shoulder. Obviously, they were going to have to play along to get anything from this guy. "The real powerful demons—like the one we're chasing—can walk on holy ground, can't be exorcised, and don't feel any effects from holy water."

Constantine tilted his chair back until the front legs were off the ground as he lit up again. "Trust John Winchester to pick a fight with a prince of Hell." He smirked as looks of shock spread across their faces. "Who else do you think would have the power to meddle like he does in human affairs? Especially since it's in violation of the balance." He sounded particularly bitter about that.

"'The balance'?" Sam asked quietly.

"What if I told you that God and the Devil made a wager, a kind of standing bet for the souls of all mankind? No direct contact with humans—that would be the rule—just influence. See who would win."

"Why?" was Jo's question.

"Who knows? Maybe just for the fun of it. People are born capable of terrible things, but sometimes, something else comes along and gives us just the right nudge. Angels and demons can't cross over, so instead you get what I call half-breeds, like Balthazar—the influence peddlers. They can only whisper in our ears, but a single word can give you courage or turn your favorite pleasure into your worst nightmare. Those with the demons' touch and those part angel, living along side us. They call it the 'balance'; I call it hypocritical bullshit. So, when a half-breed breaks the rules, I deport their sorry ass straight back to Hell. I don't get them all, but I'm hoping to get enough to…insure my retirement."

Dean swallowed the last of his beer and set the bottle back on the table, in the ring of old condensation. "So, Ellie…she's an influence peddler like Balthazar?"

"No," Constantine answered in a voice that suggested he was getting annoyed with all the questions. Well, more annoyed than he been previously. "Her human background means she gets a choice, and it's one she hasn't made yet."

Sam spoke up. "I would think it'd be an easy one. Damnation or no damnation."

"Oh, but there're the little things like power and immortality that make serving Satan tempting." He chuckled when Sam's eyebrows went up. "The half-breed you met tonight? Balthazar—he's been around for a couple thousand years." Constantine got up and wandered over to the window. "That's it. Lesson over, kids. Go home."

"What? No advice for us? Just a history lesson then get the hell out?" Dean knew his voice was a little too loud, but he didn't much care.

"Dean…" Sam started to say but was interrupted by a knock at the door.

The exorcist pinched the bridge of his nose then set his still burning cigarette on the edge of the table and went to go answer it. He only opened it a crack—not enough to let Dean or the others see who was on the other side—but they could hear the conversation clearly, echoing in the strange, cold loft.

"Mr. Constantine. I saw…" A woman's voice, and Sam shifted uneasily when he heard it, like he recognized it or something.

"I remember," he cut her off.

"And then I saw you…"

He cut her off again, his words slightly muffled.

"I'd like to ask you a few questions, if that'd be okay," the woman pressed. Sam got to his feet and walked quietly back towards the bathroom. Dean shot him a questioning look, but all his brother did was shake his head. Right, so Sam definitely knew this woman, and he thought it was best if he hid from her. When had he had the time to meet anybody, much less scare/offend/annoy them to the point where he felt hiding was necessary?

"I'm not really in the talking mood right now," Constantine told her and started to shut the door, but something stopped him. He stuck his head back out into the hall. Whatever the woman said to him, it made him let her in, though Dean heard him mumble, "There's always a catch," under his breath.


	16. Chapter 16

Angela glanced up as she stepped into Constantine's apartment over the bowling alley. There were carvings on the doorframe, like someone had taken a pocketknife to the old, splintery wood. Most of the symbols she didn't recognize; some she did—occult images, Greek letters. Looked like she'd come to the right place.

Constantine had guests. A blond girl in her late teens, early twenties was sitting at the table, drumming her fingers on the tabletop. A man with blondish-brown hair lurked by the window, watching Angela's entrance with narrowed eyes.

"I didn't know you had company," she murmured.

Constantine sat down at the table, across and a little down from the girl, in front of a bottle of liquor and a smoky overturned glass with a spider trapped inside, picking up a lit cigarette that had been left burning on the edge of the tabletop. "Just say your piece."

He wasn't any less of a jackass at home than he'd been when she'd run into him first at the hospital and then at the Theological Society. Was he always this cranky? If so, it would explain a lot about the animosity towards him down at the precinct. "My sister was murdered yesterday," Angela said, hitching her purse farther up her shoulder.

He glanced up at her, briefly. "I'm sorry to here that." His voice was too flat for her to tell if he was being sincere or sarcastic or just talking because that's what he knew was expected of him. She was more inclined to believe the latter two. The girl, though—her face went from a carefully blank mask to a more sympathetic expression. The other man, the one by the window, just looked away. A silver ring on his hand caught the yellowish light from the streetlamp outside and glinted in the shadowy room.

Angela shook her head, fighting to stay focused. It had been too easy to let her mind drift today…and every time she let her thoughts slip away, she thought she could almost feel Isabel beside her. "Thanks. She was a patient at Our Lady of Mercy Memorial." She swallowed. "She jumped off the roof."

"I thought you said she was murdered," Constantine muttered.

There was someone else in the room, Angela realized. Down at the far end, near the bed, it looked like there was a door leading off of the loft, and there was someone behind it, listening. She didn't know exactly how she knew, but she did. The same way she'd known about those thugs in the alley the other night. She always knew where they were. Always.

She moved as she spoke. "Yeah, well, Isabel wouldn't have taken her own life." All three sets of eyes followed her, but nobody moved to stop her. She halted anyway, directly across from Constantine.

"Yeah, what kind of mental patient kills herself," Constantine quipped. "That's just crazy."

Part of her wanted to smack him for that. Another part was secretly glad that he dared to mock her. Everyone else just tiptoed around her, trying hard to not hurt her feelings, until their sensitivity set her teeth on edge. Angela knew that if someone had come to her making the same assertions that she was making, she would have ribbed them mercilessly. It wasn't something she enjoyed admitting to herself, but it was the truth. She sounded crazy. "Look, I've heard your name around the precinct. I know the circles you travel in—the occult, demonology, exorcisms. Just before my sister was committed, she became deeply paranoid. She started talking about demons, angels—now, I think someone got to her, Mr. Constantine. I think they _brainwashed _her into stepping off that roof. Some kind of legion…or cult." There. She'd said it. Let him make of it what he would.

The man at the window snorted. Constantine just looked at her. "Sounds like a theory, detective. Good luck."

Not the response she'd been expecting, but then again Angela didn't know what exactly what she'd been expecting. She still didn't know why she was even here, in this dirty little loft with its dozens of bottles of water lined up along one wall and this grouchy, sarcastic man who'd managed to offend her every time she'd run into him. She didn't know why she was here…except running into him twice in one day was couldn't just be a coincidence, could it? And then there was that message on the tape. Or…not on the tape. "Well, I thought that with your background, you could at least point me in the right direction."

"Yeah, ok, sure," he said, and he pointed towards the door.

The blonde flicked a bottle cap at him.

He just reemphasized his point.

Angela felt herself tearing up again. She'd be damned if she broke down crying again in front of this cruel man and his strange friends. "It wasn't a suicide," she whispered. This man had been her last hope of finding some support for her quest to help Isabel, and she should have known better. "My sister was a devout Catholic. Do you understand what that means? That means if she'd taken her own life…"

"Her soul would go straight to Hell," he finished with her. Angela fell silent, let him finish. "Where she'd be ripped apart over and over in screaming and brutal agony for all eternity. There, that about right?"

Angela circled around the table, leaning in closer to him to look straight into his antagonistic brown eyes. "God damn you." She didn't trust herself to say anything else. Reaching over, she lifted the upside down glass, and the large spider that had been trapped underneath it skittered out across the table.


	17. Chapter 17

The room stayed silent for a minute after the cop left. She hadn't introduced herself as one, but Jo could tell. Only cops had that sort of arrogant assumption of authority. Well, cops and politicians.

The bathroom door opened, and Sam came out, his brow furrowed. "That was the woman I met at the Theological Society," he said, speaking to Dean. "The one who's sister I dreamed about." His large hands reached down and gently began kneading Jo's shoulders. After days of driving, she had knots the size of golf balls back there, and she let herself relax, grateful for the attention.

Dean turned away from the window. "So you're saying there's something to her story?"

"Her theory's bullshit," Constantine said from his place at the table.

"But her story might not be," Sam insisted. "I…" She leaned back, looked up at him, and saw him swallow as he debated whether or not to tell John about his powers. Jo reached up and covered his hands with her own, giving him a smile she meant to say 'hey, it's your decision, but I'll support you'. "I had a vision of her sister going off the side of the hospital. I don't think it's a suicide either."

"Sam…" Dean growled warningly.

Constantine flicked ash off the end of his cigarette and arched one eyebrow. "You have visions?"

"Usually, they're related to the demon we're tracking," Sam replied. "This evening, at the club, I could see what was on the card to get in."

"So, you're psychic." The exorcist blew smoke out of his nostrils and frowned. "And you think the demon's somehow involved in what's going on here in L.A.?"

"Yeah."

Suddenly, Jo felt nauseous—the same kind of nausea she got on airplanes when her feet weren't quite under her. A glance at the water cooler bottles lined up under the windows—each with a cross burned into the plastic—told her that, yes, the room was vibrating. An earthquake? This was California.

But, no, that wouldn't explain the twin looks of horror that spread across both Sam and Constantine's faces. Dean was just as confused as she was. And had it gotten darker all of a sudden?

John flew up from his chair and was out the door before she had time to formulate a question. "Dean…" Sam said, looking more than a little like an animal trapped in the headlights of a car, "Get the shotgun." Then, he too took off.


	18. Chapter 18

He hit the street and raced to the truck, the memory of hundreds of beating wings just outside the loft window in the forefront of his mind. Had it been a vision or had it been real? Out here, the night air actually felt clean—had to be a rarity for LA—after the rain. The sky overhead was still clouded, but Sam doubted you could ever see stars in this city…at least, not the kind in the sky.

It didn't match what he'd seen inside. Talons, wings…darkness that ripped at his core.

John had already caught up with the lady cop, hurrying alongside her as she stormed towards an SUV parked down the block. Whatever he was saying to her, she didn't seem to be buying it. Sam detoured to Jo's truck and vaulted into the back. The tool chest behind the cab wasn't locked, just jammed, and it took a powerful shove to get it open. Two shotguns—one belonging to the Winchesters and the other Jo's—and a carton of rock salt ammo. He tossed one of the weapons to Dean as his brother ran past. Jo was on his heels, a revolver clutched in her hands, the muzzle pointing down at the ground.

"Silver bullets," she shouted as she ran by.

It wouldn't do much good against demons, but it was better than nothing, and they only had the two shotguns. Sam grabbed a handful of shells and stuffed them in the pocket of his jeans before leaping over the tailgate and tearing off in the direction Constantine and the cop had headed. Behind him, soft, sickening pops echoed down the suddenly empty street, and with each one, the area seemed to grow darker. The homeless man who'd been pushing a shopping cart down the sidewalk when they'd come out of the bowling alley was now nowhere to be seen. Sam could only imagine he'd been driven off the street by the same nameless dread that was now clawing at his own gut.

He wasn't running fast enough. The darkness was catching up. Sam tried to force more speed from his legs, achy from spending too much time in the truck, but the cloud of horror rolled over him like a wave breaking against the shore. The streetlight directly in front of him flared once than clicked off with an almost inaudible pop. "Run!" he shouted at Jo's back, then turned to see just what was coming.

Nothing. Nothing but a blackness darker than any night he'd ever seen. He stumbled, trying to turn back and keep running, barely managing not to fall. The darkness had caught up to Jo, and she'd frozen. As he watched, her hands loosened their hold on the revolver, and it fell to the asphalt with a dull clank. Her pretty face was trying hard not to show any fear, and he had to give her props—she almost managed it. But Sam doubted there was anyone on the planet who could feel the horror pressing down around them as if it were a cloud of fog and not have their eyes go wide. His certainly were.

Sam had dealt with his share of demons and demon-possessions, but the stench of sulfur had never been this strong before. The smell of rotten eggs coated the back of his throat, making him want to gag. "Keep moving!" he ordered Jo as he gave her shoulder a shove.

She staggered a bit, then her lips tightened with resolve, and she bent down and retrieved her gun.

He hugged her awkwardly with one arm as their eyes both scanned the street. All the lights were out now, but there was no mistaking this for an ordinary power outage. Not with the smell of sulfur and not with the way that one shop window was still lit. 'La Iglesia de la Sangre de Cristo' the sign above the window said, and a statue of the Virgin Mary stared out at them from behind the crisscross of iron bars.

Both Dean and Constantine were heading for the window—one last patch of light in which to make a stand. Though what they expected to do that would fend off so many demons, Sam couldn't guess. But he hurried Jo towards them anyway.

"Of what?" the lady cop was asking Constantine as they approached. Was it just his imagination or were the tiny white Christmas lights in the window starting to fade?

Constantine pulled a rag from his pocket and wrapped it around his fist. "Something that's not supposed to be here." He glanced up as Sam and Jo approached, taking in their weapons. "Those really aren't going to help."

"Rock salt," Sam said as Jo told him, "Silver bullets."

The exorcist quirked an eyebrow at the both of them and retreated closer to the statue of Mary. Yes, the lights were fading out. All that remained was the halo of illuminated plastic stars that encircled Mary's head. "Close your eyes."

"Why?" the cop demanded. Her gun was also out as she looked desperately up at the blackness where hidden wings beat down a wind that whipped her hair into her face. Sam could almost hear shrieking, as if it were pitched just beyond the range of human hearing.

"Suit yourself," Constantine muttered as the five of them backed closer and closer to the window, closer and closer to each other. Jo was mostly behind him, and Sam wasn't quite sure when he'd moved to shield her. He wouldn't be much of an obstacle for when the demons pounced, but it was something. Dean's shoulder pressed against his on one side, and Angela, the cop, trod on his foot as they retreated.

Then the lights went out.

For a second, there was nothing but total darkness. Nothing but utter silence. All Sam could hear was the sound of his own breath rattling in his chest and the pounding of his own heart.

Then, there was a metallic clink from off to his right, where Constantine stood. _Lighter_, his brain supplied.

And light flared. Brighter than flame and purer than sunshine, it was emanating from the exorcist's fist, which he held aloft. The light revealed the demons—hundreds of them, hovering just above their heads on leathery bat wings—and then pierced them. The demons turned and tried to flee, but they couldn't escape the light. Where it touched them, it penetrated their skin, lighting a fire inside that burned through and then exploded. Showers of embers and flesh rained down.

Then the lights—all of them—came back on, and there was just Constantine, trying to shake a burning rag off his fist. Dean slumped back against the window, making the security screen rattle. The cop stumbled off to the side and doubled over, vomiting into the gutter.

"Those…things only had half a head," Jo murmured.

Sam stepped away from the window, letting her squeeze out from behind him. "What?"

"You didn't see them?" She made little flappy motions with her hands. "It looked like someone sliced the tops of their skulls off. Clean cuts." Jo looked out at Constantine, who was standing in the middle of the street.

"'Demons stay in Hell', huh?" he shouted at sky. "Does this look like Hell to you?"

Dean opened his mouth to make some wiseass comment, but Jo hushed him by stepping on his foot. "Ow!"

"What?" the blond demanded, putting her fists on her hips. "How the hell did that hurt? You're wearing steel-toed boots!"

"It's the principle of the thing—you don't just go around stomping on peoples' feet!"

Sam could suddenly feel a headache start to form right behind his temples. "Guys, I think we've got more important things to worry about."

"Yes," Angela said as she straightened, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand, "Like: what were those things?"

Constantine answered. "Demons. Scavengers of the damned."

The cop retreated again, backing into the safety of the Virgin's proximity. "Impossible," she murmured.

"Yeah, and I don't think they were after me. You really think she wouldn't commit suicide?"

There were tears in the detective's eyes as she answered him. "Isabel? Never in a million years."

Constantine's mouth twisted into something that wasn't quite a smile. "Well, let's be sure—let's see if she's in Hell."


	19. Chapter 19

They split up. The tall young man she'd run into earlier at the Theological Society—the con man, she still couldn't help but think of him as—went with the blond girl on some errand. John Constantine tried to get the other young man (brother to the first, if she was inferring right) to go with them, but the man, Dean, refused. Something about "chasing Constantine's ass all over the damn city".

Somehow, Angela found herself bringing Dean and John back to her apartment. For some reason, the move felt oddly exposing. It wasn't that her place was particularly messy—sure, there was cat hair stuck in the upholstery and breakfast dishes from two days ago (she really hadn't felt like eating…not since Isabel died) in the sink—but that they saw _everything_ as they swept the small living space with their eyes. She wondered if they knew how alike they acted. How they both held themselves with the same arrogance, as if they were certain they knew more than you and because of that felt superior. From the careful way they talked, they hadn't known each other for very long.

Constantine asked for a pan of water, big enough to put his feet into, almost before they were in the door. Angela swallowed her questions and did as he asked. There were a million things she wanted to ask him about, not the first of which was just how he planned on finding out if Isabel was in Hell, but she knew that if she pushed too hard, she'd never get any answers. She still wasn't sure why he'd agreed to help her, after showing her the door.

It must have to do with those _things_ that had attacked them in the street. Demons. Constantine had called them demons, and Dean and the other two seemed disinclined to argue.

Her cat wound himself between her legs as she watched her biggest pan slowly fill with water. It was the one she'd used for the turkey the year her parents had Thanksgiving dinner here. They'd come with Isabel to LA to commit her to Our Lady of Mercy again. Her second-to-last extended stay at the hospital. She'd been admitted two days before the holiday, and that Thanksgiving had been an awkward one. Mother was scared of Isabel, especially when Angela's twin started talking about angels and demons. Dad was just exasperated, a lifetime of dealing with doctors and anti-psychotics and all sorts of treatments that promised cures but only seemed to damage Isabel more having worn him down until he didn't have patience left for anything.

_We stopped being a family about the same time that Mom and Dad and the doctors realized that Isabel's imaginary friends were a little too real to her. Everything after that was putting on a happy face for those who didn't know about her "problem" and putting on a show of strength for those who did. _There had been happier times, Angela was sure of it, but she just couldn't remember them, and now Isabel was gone.

Angela shut off the water and turned back to the rest of the room with the pan in her hands. Dean was at the window, her carton of salt in his hand, spreading a thin white line along the sill. 'To keep out evil', he'd explained when he asked her if she had any. Constantine stood at her small dinette table, going through Isabel's things.

"Oh…was it supposed to be hot or cold?" she asked as she held the pan out to him.

"Just put it in front of the chair," he said gruffly.

One of her black dinette chairs sat in the middle of the floor. Angela carefully placed the pan in front of it. As she straightened, a sudden feeling of how bizarre all of this was washed through her, and for a split second, she considered throwing both men out of the apartment. It was the sane thing to do. "I can't believe I'm doing this."

"Nice cat," Dean muttered absently as the feline leaped up onto the table and started nosing the shirt Constantine was holding. He popped the top of the salt carton back down and sauntered (there was really no other way to describe how he walked—all hips and swagger) over to the chair.

Angela smiled and ran her hands down the cat's sleek back. "Duck."

An eyebrow shot up and a smirk spread across his face. "'Duck?'"

"Oh you think that's strange…"

Constantine stepped between them, scooping the feline up. "Cats are good. Half-in, half-out anyway."

"I knew there was a reason I didn't like 'em," Dean muttered.

Cat in hand, Constantine settled on the chair. There was something stiff and unsure about his movements that suggested reluctance to her well-trained cop eyes. Whatever he was planning to do, it clearly wasn't something he felt comfortable with. He rotated the pan with his feet and settled Duck in his lap.

Angela sat down on the floor in front of him. "If this is some kind of spell, don't you need candles or a pentagram for it to work?"

Dean snorted; John just gave her another one of those wry looks that suggested that she might just be the biggest moron on the planet. "Why?" he asked, "Do you any?"

She looked down, definitely feeling a bit moronic. "This is crazy."

"Yeah," he agreed. Then, very deliberately, he put one foot in her turkey roaster, the water rising up to cover his shoe completely. Angela blinked in surprise. "I need you to leave," he said. Looking back over his shoulder, "Both of you."

Great, the mad man who was going to do some kind of spell in her apartment wanted her to leave the room so she wouldn't even get to see. She had to admit she was curious—a lifetime of Catholicism wasn't enough to make her turn and run as far away from this as fast as she could. Because those _things_ on the street had been real. The sulfur had been real. Maybe…just maybe, Isabel hadn't been completely crazy when she spoke of angels and demons walking among regular people. It wasn't much, but right now it was all Angela had to cling to. If she said 'yes, maybe this is all real', then her sister's death didn't have to be a suicide, and Isabel didn't have to be suffering the torments of Hell.

So, she got up and headed for her bedroom, hearing the floor squeak as Dean followed her.

"The apartment," Constantine corrected right before she opened the door to her room.

"Okay," Angela muttered and turned on her heel. She held the front door open for Dean, and he gave her a roguish smile that didn't quite meet his green eyes as he stepped out. She glanced back at Constantine. "You be careful with that cat."

Duck's tail swished against John's legs. Reluctantly, she shut the door.


	20. Chapter 20

"So," Jo asked as she started the truck, "Where're we going?"

Sam clicked his seatbelt in and settled into a comfortable slouch, his knees banging up against the dash. "The morgue—I want to get a look at Isabel's body. At least hit it with the EMF meter." He glanced out the window where it had started to rain again. "It's something we can do."

The trip to the hospital was quiet but not uncomfortably so. Jo hummed under her breath when she drove—usually _REO Speedwagon_—but Sam didn't mind. He'd woken up several times in the past couple of days to hear her and then nodded off to sleep to the sound of her soprano-rendered power ballads. "Did you hunt a lot with your parents?" he asked as they paused for a red light.

"Mom, yeah, though never as much as most hunters—she's got the roadhouse to run. My dad…well, Dad died when I was still in pigtails and knee socks."

"I'm sorry." It was a dumb thing to say, but Sam had yet to find something better for situations like this. He tried to picture the man who'd fathered the blond girl next to him and failed. What kind of man could have stood up to Ellen, hunted the monsters that lurked in the shadows, and helped produce Jo? "What was his name?"

"Bill…William Anthony Harvelle." Her knuckles were white where she clutched the steering wheel with both hands. "He went out on a hunt one night when I was four and didn't come back."

Sam reached over, putting his hand palm-up on the seat between them. "I don't know if that's better or worse than what happened with my dad."

She downshifted to accommodate the slower pace of traffic now that they were nearing Our Lady of Mercy and then put her hand in his. "I was four. I hardly remember him. You were the one who found your dad, weren't you?"

He nodded, his bangs flopping into his eyes.

"I would never want to go through that. I'm sorry that you had to, and I'm sorry that he's gone. He was always nice to me."

"You knew Dad?" Sam asked, surprised.

"Sure—he'd come into the roadhouse from time to time. I'd steal his fries, and he'd hold me up so I could play the rifle arcade game."

"Huh." Sam turned his attention to the road again, watching raindrops splatter against the windshield before being swiped away by the wipers. Jo pulled off onto the shoulder to let an ambulance pass, its siren blaring, before parking in a small lot across the street from the hospital. The morgue was at the back, around the corner from the ER entrance. How many people went straight from one to the other, he wondered as he pulled the hood of his sweatshirt up to keep the rain off his neck. The last time he'd set foot in a hospital, he'd lost Dad and almost lost Dean.

Glancing up at the building, he was hit with the feeling of déjà vu. This was the place…the building from his dream with the large white crossing stretching down the front. If there had been any doubt in his mind over whether he was where he needed to be, it was gone now.

The morgue doors were open as they approached, and the two of them slipped in through the heavy slats of plastic designed to shield the world at large from the morgue's grisly contents. The place had at the same smell of death that the general hospital had, only stronger and overlaid with a chemical tang that Sam couldn't quite place. A corpse lay on a stretcher just inside the door, its skin blue-black. He didn't even want to guess the cause of death. Peering around the corner, he saw the morgue attendant's back was to them as the man rustled around in the office's mini-fridge. Sam signaled for Jo to move forward, past the office's entrance.

She slid past almost silently and palmed the plate that opened the door to the morgue proper. The heavy steel rumbled to the side, and a blast of cold air wafted out at them. Corpses lined the narrow hall—stacked on shelves and laid out on stretchers—only their feet with accompanying toe tags visible. Jo moved to the nearest stretcher and glanced at the tag, then shook her head. Not Isabel.

Sam sighed and moved a little farther down the line. They didn't have much time before the attendant or a guard discovered them. Closing his eyes, he sucked in a deep breath, forcing himself not to gag at the smell. There was a woman here who had needed his help, but he'd arrived too late to save her.

_Samuel_…

The voice was ethereal and faint, and he wasn't quite sure he really heard it, but when he turned, he found himself staring down at the body of Isabel Dodson. The sheet had been pulled back, revealing that she and Angela hadn't just been sisters—they'd been twins. Identical twins. He hadn't been sure before… "Jo," he hissed as he leaned forward and lifted the plastic sheet off the corpse, "I found her." She was dressed in a simple, white hospital gown. Her dark hair was crusted with ice as if it had been wet when they brought her in here. It fit with what he had seen—her falling, crashing through a skylight, and then floating face-up in a pool.

Jo sucked in a breath as she came up beside him. "She looks just like the cop." Reaching into the pocket of her jean jacket, she pulled out what could only be an EMF meter and flicked it on. The needle immediately shot into the red. "Definitely something supernatural going on here." Her nose wrinkled. "And I think I can smell sulfur, though that might still be from before."

Sam was only half-listening. His hand moved first to Isabel's throat and then to her exposed arm, turning it to look for any sign of what had killed her. The tips of his fingers tingled as he touched her wrist…

On the inside of her arm was what looked like an old burn scar in the shape of a circle with an 'X' slicing through it. The flesh was gray around the wound, and Sam wondered if she'd carried the brand for a while or if the mark had been left post-mortem. That's what this was—a mark, a brand, a sign. It felt like he should recognize it, but like a word caught on the tip of his tongue, he just couldn't.

Gently, he traced the tip of his finger over the mark and then collapsed to his knees as light exploded in front of his eyes and thunder cracked in his head. It was like the migraines that always accompanied his visions only fifty times worse. It tore a howl out of him that ripped at his throat as it escaped. Five seconds…ten…fifteen…and the only thought Sam could manage was a desperate plea for it all to _stop_. It felt as if his brain was exploding inside his skull as images flashed on the insides of his eyelids.

_A dark man in a red coat moving steadily closer…_

_Angela—Isabel?—underwater…_

_A crowd of men who were demons…_

_Great white wings…_

He screamed again and slammed his head against the side of the gurney. He felt Jo's slender arms wrap themselves around his shoulders and drag him into her lap as she murmured soothing noises into his ear. Boneless, he sprawled on the floor of the morgue as she cradled him to her, one hand petting his hair as the world throbbed painfully around him. It felt like someone had dug every nerve out of his flesh and rubbed salt into the wounds. Even the cold, sterile light was too bright, and he shut his eyes against it.

"Hey! You! What the hell are you doing in here?" Sam opened his eyes long enough to get an impression of a human shape in institutional blue at the edge of his vision.

_Freaky kids, always sneaking in here to grope the bodies_.

"We didn't come here to grope anything," Sam protested as he tried to get to his feet. The world swam sickeningly, and he staggered, catching himself on Isabel's gurney. Her stiff, icy arm flopped against his hand, and he swallowed, tasting vomit in the back of his throat. Jo's arm was immediately around him, trying to provide him with support.

Jo pulled something out of her back pocket and flashed it at the security guard. "LAPD. Look, my partner's obviously sick. We'll get out of your hair." She propelled them towards the exit, Sam stumbling and staggering with each step. How she kept him upright and moving boggled his abused brain, but somehow they managed to stumble out into the rain. _God, I didn't know the visions were this bad._

"They're usually not," he told her.

Jo stopped suddenly, bringing them to a halt right at the curb. "What did you say?" _I didn't say that out-loud, did I?_

"Christ," he moaned. He was hearing thoughts. Jo's and probably the security guard's as well. People were passing them on the sidewalk, heading into the emergency room, and he heard a low-level babble in the back of his brain. Occasionally, someone would brush too close, and he'd catch a snatch of something specific. "Jesus H. Christ."

Jo looked up at him, her face grim. Then, she grabbed his elbow and started them moving again, across the street to where a little convenience store sat tucked in between a laundry mat and a diner. "Stay here," she ordered, propping him up against a newspaper box outside the store, and then ducked inside.

Sam slid down the side of the box, not really carrying that the concrete he settled on was wet and stank faintly of piss. Drawing his knees up to his chest, he pressed his forehead to his kneecaps and tried to will away the dull hubbub in his head. Too loud. Much, much too loud. It had to go away—there was no way he could live ripped wide open like this.

Jo came back out and crouched down in front of him. He recognized the scuffed toes of her combat boots and felt her hand stroke over his head. "Sam…Sam…"

He raised his head and met her eyes, knowing he must look like shit. "I can hear them all in my head." The cashier on the other side of the wall was wondering if he needed to check the state of the store's bathroom. The hospital across the street was nothing but a red throb of pain and misery. "It's never been like this before."

She pulled a bottle of vodka out of the brown paper bag she held in one hand. "Here, drink some of this. Alcohol's supposed to numb psychic crap."

Sam took the bottle and twisted off the cap. "How do you know?" Tipping it back, he chugged enough vodka for a shot or three. It burned the whole way down, and his unsettled stomach blanched at the sudden influx of booze, but he bit down the urge to be sick as he screwed the cap back on the bottle.

"I did some research after you told me about your visions."

"Afraid I was going to turn into some kind of monster?"

"Afraid something like this was going to happen and I wouldn't be able to help." She gave him a shy smile and took the bottle from him, sliding it back into its bag.

Sam reached out and took her chin in his hand, tilting it up towards him. It was too soon to tell if her vodka cure would help, but it was the thought that counted. Leaning forward, he pressed his lips against hers. As the thoughts of an entire city pounded in the back of his mind, Sam focused on the feel of petal-soft lips against his.


End file.
